Day 1 || Do or Do Not. There is No Try.

I discovered this quote when I was a teenager, most likely in 8th or 9th grade, tackling my first novel (a sum total of 50 pages – my record at that time). Before each chapter I would type in an inspirational quote that I liked, and stumbled upon this fantastic one by Yoda. I adored it; succinct and powerful. Almost every day I find myself thinking about this quote, or daydreaming about quoting it to others.

The biggest reason I love this quote is because I find it to be so poignant. When I first began to contemplate this quote, and what it meant for me, I realized that whenever I say that I’m “trying” what that typically translates into is that I either haven’t started yet or I’m mostly just thinking about doing it without actually doing it. “To try” ends up being a weak excuse – that many people readily accept – because “trying” is expected and encouraged. It’s very much in line with that whole “shoot for the moon and land among the stars” mentality for me. Even if you don’t get where you want to be, at least you tried.

In the end, I reject this concept. For me, I very much have a “go with Plan A all the way” mentality. Part of this is because having back-up plans for your back-up plans is exhausting – you waste a lot of time and energy formulating these plans, stressing about these plans, and then later executing them when earlier plans collapse. Recently, I had this problem myself and I existed in such a nebulous space for many weeks. Then, I received some guidance and in my heart, I felt secure with this – even though it lacked the same certainty as the other choice and would require more work from me.

I believe in finding one thing you want to do, and doing it full throttle. That’s why “do or do not, there is no try” is my favorite quote.

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I personally don’t like this quote, its similar to ‘all or nothing’. If a child was drowning in a pond, wouldn’t you ‘try’ to save them? Or would you ‘do or do not’? The quotation that’s always stuck with me was ‘It’s better to try and fail than fail to try.’ I’ve passed it on to my daughters, I hope they pass it on also.